MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 5, 2001

Chris DiMarco

CHRIS DiMARCO: It was a great day. That's all I can say. (LAUGHTER).

CHRIS DiMARCO: It was. Every time I kind of got myself in a tough situation, I had -- I didn't leave it on the wrong side of the hole. I didn't have that tricky five- or six-foot with a foot break which would get away from you. I never got myself in a position where the putt could get away from me. That's -- everybody I've talked to, all of the people I've played with the last few weeks, that's what they said not to do, is just not put yourself in that situation, and I tried -- if it meant not being able to hit it to four feet and -- a 15-foot putt uphill is a lot better than five or six feet downhill and be aggressive.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I played good yesterday. I think I shot 4- or 5-under yesterday. So, I mean, it was -- the course kind of sets up good for me. I'm driving the ball real well now. I actually switched drivers yesterday morning, right before I went out. I hit it and I was like, wow, struggling with my driver last week, and this one is the new Ping driver and it made a big difference, hitting a lot of fairways, I'm hitting longer, I've been hitting my irons good. I've been putting good. I had a good week last week, one swing on the last hole and I finished second or third and who knows, or sixth.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, if anything, that round kind of helped me. Looking back now, because the greens were so fast, and with the wind blowing them, it really got me in that mode to be kind of defensive, but stay aggressive, and I didn't putt well on Sunday, because I was very tentative because the greens were so fast. I was telling my caddy throughout the day, I said, "You know, you can be aggressive without being crazy." And that's what I did today. I took my chances when I had them and I was aggressive on putts I know that I can be aggressive on, and I made a few. I was very fortunate to make a few.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, it's something I've been doing for six years. Basically, it's just a normal left hand just like anybody else would grip the club and my right hand is how it would be if you kind of clawed the long putter, and basically I'm trying to putt with my left side. It's just taking my right side out. It helps me stay a little smoother on the putts, and helps me stroke it, obviously, a lot better. I used to have a little shorter, quicker stroke, and this just let's me be more fluid.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I think they call that the Psycho Grip, to tell you the truth. I think that's all it is. Since I'm such a big Gator fan, I've been trying to call it the Gator Grip.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I don't know. Somebody just -- I don't know, one of you guys, called it the Psycho Grip because it was pretty funky looking, I guess. I've read that a few times and it's never been questioned.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I will give Skip Kendall a plug. He showed me it five years ago. I was ready. It was no fun anymore, the game. It was so much of a struggle from five feet and in, and I looked at him one day and I said, "Boy, you're crazy. Like what is that?" Two days later I went out to play and I had one of those putts I knew I was not going to make from four feet and I tried it and lo and behold it went straight in the middle and it was like, wow, kind of reborn, rejuvenated. It was fun.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I do not. I traded it in. It was tough to let it go. It was fun when you were winning. You started losing some games, it was no fun driving that around, and everybody is yelling at you and doing like that. It was fun when you were winning. (Laughter.)

CHRIS DiMARCO: I traded it in I think the end of '99.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I got a BMW. (Laughter.) It was a lot better to drive.

CHRIS DiMARCO: It was just a conversion van, just a Ford conversion fan.

CHRIS DiMARCO: No. That was so long ago. That's over.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I was a lot less nervous than I thought I was going to be. I really thought I was going to be really nervous. I had just hit two good drives there in both rounds I played, so I felt good. I just hit good drives on the range. I felt pretty comfortable. I think I was -- I wasn't nervous about not hitting a good shot. I was nervous because it was the Masters, kind of. Once I hit it down the middle and I hit a 9-iron about five feet, I missed about a 5-footer on the first hole, and it just kind of settled me down, it did. That's the way -- I would have liked to have made the five feet, but hit a nice drive, nice shot on the green, relatively easy par on the first hole is a nice way to start.

CHRIS DiMARCO: No, not really. You know, I try to just -- I try not to think about my round before I play. I just to -- there's no need getting all pumped up before a round. Who knows what's going to happen. I try to stay -- my dad is an emotional guy, so my dad likes to -- he is Italian so he likes to give pep-talks.

CHRIS DiMARCO: Feels pretty good. I hope it's there Sunday afternoon. That's the main goal. Obviously you cannot win the tournament today. You just put yourself in a position to the not lose the tournament and I did that today. I put a good number up. This is a hard course. You are not going to have things go your way all the time and I had everything go my way today. I just hope it stays like that -- if it stays like that, you know it should be a good week.

CHRIS DiMARCO: This coming from a "what" fan?

CHRIS DiMARCO: Okay.

CHRIS DiMARCO: No, I think that was a fun deal to do. No. Probably not.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I guess. I mean, you know, I heard how hard the course was and not hit it here and not hit it there. You know, if you play well, I don't care where you are playing, you are going to play well. Experience is obviously very big. I'm sure it -- I would love to have three or four years behind me Sunday afternoon, or even tomorrow afternoon. But, you know, I don't, so I can't harp on the fact that I don't have the experience. I've just got to go out and just play golf.

CHRIS DiMARCO: It was pretty neat. I was just thinking about how cool that would be to be in that position on Sunday afternoon and having that relation. That was maybe the only time I got ahead of myself all day. There's obviously a lot of holes between that situation. It was just pretty neat. You know 16th green, so many good things have happened on that green. I was kind of laughing because, you know, Greg hit his ball up and it rolled back right dead behind my ball on the same line, so he showed me the line, showed me everything. Those kind of things were happening all day.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, I was lucky, I got to play with Bernhard Langer at Bay Hill so I kind of picked his brain. Then I got Fred Couples and Jose Maria the first two rounds at TPC. I got Jose again the third round so I got two good players to ask some questions and I played with Els last week and Phil Mickelson the last two rounds. So I got some good information from some guys.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, it's just kind of -- it is just kind of my hobby, I guess. Everybody has a hobby. The Gators are my hobby. I am a diehard Gator fan. I love the Gators. It's a lot of -- I have a lot of friends, my brother -- my brothers are eight and five years older than me and they both went to Florida. So I have been a Gator since ten years old. It's been 22 years, I am starting to bleed orange and blue.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, I've obviously -- my goal is to play real well the first part of the year; so come September I can take a couple weeks off and go watch the games. I try to get to about four or five every year, and I do, normally.

CHRIS DiMARCO: Dudley Hart, who is here. Pat Bates, who has done really well. He's been out here a couple of times. Chris Tollson (ph) and I guy named Jeff Barlow (ph) was our starting fine.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, I've never teed it up. But a good story last year at Pennsylvania. He sent me a letter after I won, and then I'm good friends with one of the booster, main booster guys up there. And he told me that they turned off the game film and watched me play the last hour of the telecast when I won in Pennsylvania, because I gave them -- it was the week of the Tennessee game. And I guess we were on 17 on one of the days, that we had just won, I think it was Sunday afternoon and we had won the game and it was a questionable catch at the end and I kind of gave them -- "it was a good catch", on TV. It was pretty nice that I got that letter from him and from the other coaches.

CHRIS DiMARCO: No. I turned that one off. After (Laughter.) Some Miami guy again, gees.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I put the green shirt on because it was my first round at the Masters, and obviously Masters is synonymous with green. So I did that by choice.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, I just think that the whole level of the PGA TOUR has gotten better. I don't want to take away from all of the guys that played years and years ago, but if you look back years and years ago, it was six or seven guys, basically, in every major. You know, there was a lot of great players, don't get me wrong, but now the depth of the PGA TOUR is so good, you know, you look at what Joe Durant has done this year; the guy has played great. You know, I think some guys just need to find it, and once we -- once you find it and once you get -- certainly, feeling comfortable is the main thing. Once you feel comfortable out here, you see a lot of guys becoming better because they are comfortable. I've been extremely fortunate since I won to get to play with who I play with now. I play with the winners every week and it's just made me that much better, playing with guys that win every week. It's amazing.

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, two weeks ago. That's it. TPC, I was struggling with the way I was hitting it. I was having a hard time getting the club back. I was taking back kind of shut and outside. So I just kind to -- I tried that and it kind of got me in position. I said, well, there's the feeling I want; so just do it twice before hitting it. It's actually really good, because it slows me down. Keeps me in the moment. Keeps me in the present.

CHRIS DiMARCO: Sure. I told you about No. 1, a good start. 2, I hit a perfect drive there and I hit a 3-wood just short of the green. Chipped it up about five feet and made that. I made my only bogey of the day on 3. I missed clubs because it was still back in the green. Hit it just right of the green and didn't get it up -and-down. I hit a really good shot on 4 and didn't make the putt. 5, I had a driver left. And it was the turning point that kind of got things going. I hit it left underneath the trees and where the pin, it was -- it was that big knob right on front, and I hit a punch draw 6-iron. I hit it perfect 12 feet and made that. That was nice. Birdied the next hole. Hit a 5-iron to the back of the green and made that. 7, I hit a -- you know the toughest thing about this course is that, you know, I've heard how hard the greens are. And they are a little softer this year. 7, I had a good sand wedge yardage. I knew that it would spin back; so I just chipped a wedge in there three feet and made that. Parred 8. 9, I hit a good drive and another little chip 8-iron up there about five feet, four feet and made that. Made a good momentum-saver on 10. Hit it in the front right bunker. Then I blasted out with a sand wedge about 12, 15 feet. Made a good breaking putt for par, and that helped my round go forward. Played 11 good. Missed a 12-footer there. 12, I've been hitting 7-iron there the whole week, and I just told my caddy I think it's an 8, and I hit 8-iron about five feet short and made that. 13, a really good drive down the middle, and where the pin is, I didn't feel comfortable going for it. So I laid it up with an 8-iron, made that. 15, I hit it right, and I had a good layup to where I hit it. And this was a hard shot, I didn't practice that in the practice rounds, because I went for the green every day and I had to lay up. That was a hard shot and it was on mud. It was a hard shot with the pin left, and I hit a solid L-wedge about 15 feats behind the hole and made that for par. 16 I hit it in the middle and 2-putted. 17, I hit it right. My caddy gave me the wrong yardage. We had 166, according to him, played 162 and we actually had like 175. And I hit into the front of the bunker, and I hit a really good bunker shot about four feet and made that. He told me "thank you" for making that. I hit a good 3-wood, good 6-iron 15 feet on 18, just misread it a little bit. I thought it would go a little right and it just missed on the left edge.

CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, I mean, obviously, if you are putting good and you are feeling comfortable, the main thing about putting out here is you've just got to trust your line. The putt I had on 17, I only had a 4-footer on 17. I played it two or three balls outside the left edge from four feet. Just got to trust that and know that it is going to break.

CHRIS DiMARCO: When we got on the tee on 16 it was 162 yards, and they -- they throw you for a loop. They put the tees all the way back. So I was hitting 5-iron the first two days, 5- and 6-iron, and you get up there and it's only 162 yards. Obviously, from watching a lot and from asking guys, right and long is not good. So, you know, I knew that I was not going to be long with an 8-iron. So I had 7-iron out originally, and that would have been just too perfect of a shot to hit it right there. So, you know I was trying to hit it back there, and if I missed it I was going to miss left. 17, the bunkers have got a lot of sand in them. It was an easy bunker shot, to tell you the truth, because once it gets out, it's just straight downhill and uphill to the hole. So if I flew it and tried to spin it could go anywhere because it could spin down the hill. I was trying to fly it maybe another foot, but I was trying to much downslope and run it up there like I did.

CHRIS DiMARCO: It didn't have the best lie in the world, and I could not hit the spinner. So I just tried to blast it out. That's what you can do out here. You can use the greens to your advantage. Believe it or not, that's the place to miss it today, a lot better than long . You saw what Greg Chalmers did; he hit a good shot on the green and 3-putted from 25 feet.

CHRIS DiMARCO: My father just recently retired. He was with Sysco Foods for 40-some-odd years and he was originally in New York and had an opportunity to move everybody down to Orlando and we've been there since 1975.

CHRIS DiMARCO: It was funny because I remember I used to when I was 8, 9, 10 years old, with my buddies, we would go play and I would play four balls. I would play my ball and I would have one that was Nicklaus, one was Palmer and one that was Player and I used to try to beat them. I always made them miss the 4-footers. (Laughter.) But it was fun. I mean, it was, you know -- yeah, I can remember even in college, I can remember we would watch a tournament and we would go out and we had a par 3 course where we would go play just to go play because it was just the magnitude of the tournament. It just pumped you up so much. It was unbelievable.